CASS Annual Public Lecture on Future Directions in Indigenous Research 2018

This lecture will reflect on my creative practice-led doctoral research project, Still in my mind: Gurindji location, experience and visuality, which I have been undertaking since 2012 through UNSW Art and Design Australia.

This research project addresses personal and political capabilities of critical Indigenous performative autoethnography and Indigenous Storying, drawing from diverse theoretical standpoints, through working intimately with members of my patrilineal family and community on and in diverse sites across the country..

The lecture will be structured in two parts - effectively a diptych - presenting diversely expressed texts, one from a more academic perspective, the other from a more personalised position. As such, these approaches reflect academic, curatorial and creative practitioner intersections and connections..

Both elements combine the personal and political, with the interplay between suggesting how multiple viewpoints of critical Indigenous performative autoethnography, Indigenous Storying and representation resonate through cross-contextual forms.

About the speaker

Brenda L Croft is from the Gurindji/Malngin/Mudburra peoples from the Victoria River region of the Northern Territory of Australia, and also has Anglo-Australian/German/Irish/Chinese heritage. Brenda's transdisciplinary practice-led research encompasses critical performative Indigenous auto-ethnography, representation and identity, Indigenous Storying and creative narratives, installation, multi-media and multi-platform work, personal and public archives, memory and memorialisation.

Brenda has a long-standing engagement with patrilineal family and community members, both on traditional homelands and also as part of dispossessed, Gurindji-affiliated communities. Her doctoral research project Still in my mind: Gurindji location, experience and visuality, a collaborative exhibition with Karungkarni Art & Culture Aboriginal Corporation, UNSW Galleries, UNSW Art & Design and UQ Art Museum, commences a national tour from September 2018, through to 2021.

Brenda's work is represented in major public collections in Australia and overseas and private collections. In addition to working with the ANU she is a practising artist, independent writer and consultant. Brenda is also an Adjunct Fellow with the National Institute for Experimental Arts, UNSW Art & Design Australia, where she is completing her doctoral research.